BOKS : Plot Against America by Phillip Roth
Like Man in High Castle, this story is set in an 'alternate history'; Roosevelt loses the 1940 election to an isolationist who sides with the Nazis.
The story is strangely auto-biographical. It is written from the point of view of the 8 year old Phillip Roth and centers on his political father, strong mother, impressionable brother and hot-headed cousin.
It has a strange feel to the whole book, sometimes clinical in detail and explanation, sometimes warbling in its anecdotes, and with little in the way of 'climax'. In fact, most of the climax is written as a series of 'reports' relaying the infomraiton of what happened, but with little emotion at all.
As the book progresses it becomes more and more clear that the president is starting to install a pogrom to isolate and destroy the jews in America. But cleverly this is all undercurrents, and makes you have a certain sense of foreboding even though nothing overt is happening. Maybe the education camps are benign. Maybe they're not.
The most confusing thing for me was what Roth was trying to say. He certainly conveyed the feeling of unease and fear and suspicion that one imagines was and is felt by all minorities, especially as they are marginalised and assimilated. But why did he write it now? And with such a provocative name? The most obvious group for me that is in a similar position to what he is writing about are muslims in the west - was he writing about them? In which case that's a pretty brave move to use a jewish story, very close to the holocaust, to talk about bigotry against muslims...
All in all I found it an enjoyable, and educational, read. I would think that most people would find it a good book, even without a typical build-to-climax structure.
The story is strangely auto-biographical. It is written from the point of view of the 8 year old Phillip Roth and centers on his political father, strong mother, impressionable brother and hot-headed cousin.
It has a strange feel to the whole book, sometimes clinical in detail and explanation, sometimes warbling in its anecdotes, and with little in the way of 'climax'. In fact, most of the climax is written as a series of 'reports' relaying the infomraiton of what happened, but with little emotion at all.
As the book progresses it becomes more and more clear that the president is starting to install a pogrom to isolate and destroy the jews in America. But cleverly this is all undercurrents, and makes you have a certain sense of foreboding even though nothing overt is happening. Maybe the education camps are benign. Maybe they're not.
The most confusing thing for me was what Roth was trying to say. He certainly conveyed the feeling of unease and fear and suspicion that one imagines was and is felt by all minorities, especially as they are marginalised and assimilated. But why did he write it now? And with such a provocative name? The most obvious group for me that is in a similar position to what he is writing about are muslims in the west - was he writing about them? In which case that's a pretty brave move to use a jewish story, very close to the holocaust, to talk about bigotry against muslims...
All in all I found it an enjoyable, and educational, read. I would think that most people would find it a good book, even without a typical build-to-climax structure.
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